Earlier this year, I looked at the writing of my first book in the epic Horus Heresy series, The Flight of the Eisenstein – and once again in 2022, I find myself looking back at another of my works in that saga as we pass a milestone; ten years ago this month my third Horus Heresy novel Fear To Tread was released…
Originally published in 2012, with a hardcover collector’s edition in 2015 and a part-work hardback in 2018, more than anything that came before or since, Fear To Tread was the one novel I felt compelled – destined, even! – to write in the chronicles of the Heresy.
A quick recap: Black Library is the publishing arm of Games Workshop, the creators of the colossal Warhammer 40,000 franchise, a universe built off a massively popular table-top wargame set in a pulpy, gothic sci-fi future. BL’s job is to create tie-in fiction for their intellectual property, and the core of the Warhammer mythos is the tale of an interstellar civil war fought between brother-champions and their vast legions of Space Marines, led by the Warmaster Horus Lupercal – hence the name. Horus’s heretical rebellion is the ur-myth of this vast saga, and across more than sixty novels and dozens of short stories, novellas, graphic novels and audio dramas, I and many other writers have told the tale since 2007.
I’ve talked before in other places and at other times about the start of the Horus Heresy series, but here I recall the very first thing that went through my mind when I was offered the chance to work on the project – the Battle of Signus Prime.
Even though the first book I wrote for the Heresy saga was The Flight of the Eisenstein, even though I would write a half-dozen other stories in that era before I got to it, the great conflict between the mighty primarch Sanguinius, Lord of the Blood Angels Space Marine legion, and the daemonic forces of Chaos was the story I most wanted to tell.
When the Heresy project kicked off, I was already writing about the Blood Angels chapter in their later Warhammer 40,000 incarnation. Over four novels – the duologies Deus Encarmine and Deus Sanguinius, and Black Tide and Red Fury – the deeper I went into the character of their legion and the rich history of their foundation, the more I wanted to peel back the layers and find the true heart of their story, back in the prehistory of their most epic battle during the Heresy era.
Fear To Tread was the evolution of that intent; a novel that burned away in the back of my mind for five years as the Horus Heresy gained momentum and the clock of the Warmaster’s betrayal slowly turned toward the events on distant Signus Prime. What happens on Signus is not only an event of great import for the Heresy itself, but also a defining moment for the Blood Angels, and I have to admit, I was both excited and daunted by the prospect of writing these epic scenes.
Fear to Tread allowed me to bring the experiences of the Blood Angels to the fore of the Heresy and set up links in the chains of narrative that would go on to play out in the stories that followed and eventually, all the way to the conclusion at the Siege of Terra – where Sanguinius and his arch-nemesis the daemon-lord Ka’Bandha meet again for some final settling of scores.
With that frankly epic death-metal album cover art by the incredible Neil Roberts, and more than eleven printings in seven languages and approximately 150,000 copies in print worldwide to date, Fear To Tread became the highest-charting New York Times Bestseller of the Horus Heresy series, and I’m proud to have been the author behind it.
As I’ve said before, much has changed in the ten years since I wrote this novel, both for me personally as a writer but also with Black Library, the Warhammer franchise and it’s fans – but what hasn’t changed is the passion and the amazing, enduring support from the readers that have made Fear To Tread a linchpin in the mythos of the Blood Angels, now and for the future. Thank you all!
